Over the past decade, car sales in the United States and around the world have seen a dramatic decline. American auto makers have especially felt the impact here in the States due to aggressive marketing plans of foreign auto makers such as Toyota. Over the past several years, Ford Motor Company has used to their advantage that they never borrowed money from the government as their US competitors GM and Chrysler did for a bailout. They also started restructuring the entire company earlier on and have over the past few years started to focus on the compact and mid size sedan car market.
Ford Motor Company has over the past two years pushed small to compact cars into the market with sleek new designs, better gas mileage and price points that rivaled other makers. By doing this, they were able to offer cars that attracted certain markets; young professionals, parents purchasing cars for their children or people just looking to save on the cost of gas with a smaller more gas friendly car.
Not only just the compact market, Ford pushed to revamp its Ford Taurus which was once the best selling mid size sedan in the market. This push to market a sleek, new and exciting midsize sedan was significant to Ford. At this time Toyota was having significant design flaws with Taurus’s rival, the Camry. Because of the timing, Ford was able to see a 96% increase in sales of its Taurus brand. This is a perfect example of Strategic Planning on Ford’s part; mixed with a little luck!
Ford’s next step is to ramp up production by several million units in order to have a presence in markets where they have been slow to grow; specifically Asia. With this planning put into motion, we will have to see how Ford comes out. Will Ford be able to be competitive in markets already dominated by other car makers? If they continue to be as aggressive as they have been here in the States, they have a shot!
